Rather than submit to anything short of that, let us resolve to
die as men worthy of freedom."
A few days after the defeat of Burnside's army at Fredericksburg the
South was thrilled by the feat of General McGruder in Galveston harbor.
The daring Confederate Commander had seized two little steamers and
fitted them up as gun boats by piling cotton on their sides for
bulwarks. With these two rafts of cotton cooeperating on the water, his
infantry waded out into the waters of Galveston Bay and attacked the
Federal fleet with their bare hands.
When the smoke of battle lifted the city of Galveston was in Confederate
hands, the fleet had been smashed and scattered and the port opened to
commerce. Commodore Renshaw had blown up his flag ship to prevent her
falling into McGruder's hands and gone down with her. The garrison
surrendered.
Jackson had invented a "foot cavalry." McGruder had supplemented it by a
"foot navy."
At Murfreesboro, Tennessee, on the same day General Bragg had engaged
the army of Rosecrans and fought one of the bloodiest engagements of the
war. Its net results were in favor of the Confederacy in spite of the
fact that he permitted Rosecrans to move into Murfreesboro. The Northern
army had lost nine thousand men, killed and wounded, and Bragg carried
from the field six thousand Federal prisoners, thirty pieces of
artillery, sixty thousand stand of small arms, ambulances, mules, horses
and an enormous amount of valuable stores.
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